


Warmth

by Crollalanza



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Relationship Beginnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 07:54:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11144127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crollalanza/pseuds/Crollalanza
Summary: To Shiro the horror of his situation hits home not when he’s in the ring, becoming the creature the Galra honed, but when it’s dark, when it’s silent, when the quiet chills his strength to resist.He needs warmth.





	Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for Infinite - a Sheith magazine. I was honoured to contribute to the zine, which is not only full of art and stories from peope far more talented than me, but also raised money for PTSD victims.

The nights are the worst.

It’s not the pain because pain means he’s alone.

There’s no concept of time where he is. Night is a perception he has when he side-eyes the (he should probably say ‘Doctor’, but what they do to him would break any medical oath) _Experimenter_ and sees a sag under the eye before they leave and he’s bundled back to his box of a room to sleep off whatever alteration they’ve made that day.

And although even miniscule movements set his nerves screaming, he relishes the pain.

He learns not to take all the drugs on offer. In the beginning, when the hurt ricocheted through his body and he writhed under any touch, they’d pump him full of drugs. He thought once it was a show of compassion, but now he knows the truth:  a deadened body is easier to work on. A deadened mind can’t protest, can’t process the agony, will mute and shutdown.

Will become what they want.

_Pain,_ he reasons, _means he can feel_. So he begins to fake how long it takes for the drugs to work. He feigns unconsciousness, steeling himself inside as they cut into his flesh, tearing his sinews to create their champion.

But the nights are when he can’t shutdown. The horror of his situation hits home not when he’s in the ring, becoming the creature they’ve honed, but when it’s dark, when it’s silent, when the quiet chills his strength to resist.

He needs warmth.

It’s a small thing at first. A tiny image froths at the corner of his brain, and he’s no idea what brought on the memory, but maybe it’s the sound of someone outside. A swish of a door, reminding him that once he could walk without guards, his thoughts the only chaperones.

***

It had been one of the hottest days of summer, and forced to take charge of the new recruits when his supervisor pleaded gastric flu, Shiro had been sweltering inside a simulator for hours. His mood was lead, and the party he should have been attending - a chance for the base to kick up their collective heels and forget themselves for an hour or so – did not appeal, not with the headache pounding at his skull.  

The ice machine had given up the ghost , no doubt protesting at the number of fists thumped into it, and Shiro’s glass of tepid water stood untouched on his desk as he wondered what was worse – the thumping head or venturing out of his room to find pain killers.

A door opened. Not his bedroom door, but the one at the end of the corridor, the unmistakable sound of it sticking a touch, and then the muffled curse as the incomer waited for it to widen.

And Shiro had no idea who it was outside, or even if they’d turned up to speak to him, but all of a sudden, he didn’t want to find out. The work could wait; his water would remain un-drunk. He needed air not medication. He needed air and freedom.

It was a quick shift to the window, and a quicker drop to the outside, landing with a stealthy ‘flump’ on the dusty ground.

Freedom tasted arid, but Shiro smiled for the first time that day.

Enjoying the subterfuge - his back flush to the wall - he crept past the guards, then broke into a run for the perimeter fence.  Behind him, the blare of music and flare of lights from the party mocked his need for solitude, but there was more power in his legs now and not caring he might be spotted, he ventured onwards.

He was in touching distance of the barbed wire when he saw him. A figure slumped like a bag of old clothes against the concrete post. And he’d have walked past it if it hadn’t been for a slight breeze lilting in the night sky, causing a fluttering movement and than a hand jerking up to flatten down their hair.

One of the new recruits, Shiro thought. He wasn’t sure which one, but several had passed through the simulator that day, some loud, others nervy, a few focused.

_Walk away,_ he thought. _Turn tail and find another escape route. They’re no concern of yours out of hours._

The moon betrayed Shiro. One shaft of light dappling down onto his face and the figure flinched.

“Shirogane!” it yelped.

He narrowed his eyes, assessing the face and the tone of voice. The intense recruit, the one who’d watched everything, impatient to try his hand. And then when he had, he’d out flown his class in every test.

“Keith, right?”

“Uh, yeah.” He got to his feet, not bothering to brush off the dust on his clothes.

“Not celebrating? That was a fine piece of flying today.”

“Simulation,” Keith muttered, arms folded across his chest.

A chuckle stuck in Shiro’s throat. He wondered if it was arrogance shrouding the cadet, but no, it was more a hungering. As he stepped closer, Keith tilted his head up, meeting his eyes and he saw a flicker of defiance and that impatience again.

“You want to fly.”

“That’s _why_ I’m here.” His eyes blazed their fury.

“And you will,” Shiro replied, recognising the burning. “But it’s important to learn the basics.”

“I _know_ the basics. Wasn’t that obvious?”

The music reached them again. Keith turned his back, moodily kicking a stone and making it scud across the dust.

“Basics that include being part of a crew,” Shiro murmured. “And people that could be your crew are currently in there.”

“Are you ordering me inside? Is that why you’re here?”

“I can’t order you to do anything,” Shiro replied, and this time he let a soft laugh fall from his lips. “I’m not in charge, Keith. There’s no seniority here. I’m trained - that’s all.”

“But you think I should join them? Have ‘fun’.” He said the word as if he’d been saying it over and over and now it made no sense.

“I don’t think you should scorn people that want fun, that enjoy life and laughter,” Shiro retorted.

“I’m not!”  That snapped him out of his gloom. His stance unstiffened, his arms hanging by his side, and an altogether more vulnerable expression flittered across his moonlit face. “I don’t belong in there.”

“Maybe you should make an effort.”

“Maybe I...” And then he started, scowling so ferociously, Shiro wondered if the lines would stay entrenched on his brow. “Hey! If you’ve not been sent to find me, and you’re not ordering me to attend, then why aren’t you inside with the rest of them?”

“I ...” He tried a smile. “I have no answer to that, except I had a headache, and now ...” Shiro took in a breath, the heat of the day had dissipated under the cloudless night sky, and now the air was cool on his tongue.  “I like it here.”

“Here? You mean the Garrison?”

“I like the Garrison, but I meant this place,” he said, and gestured towards the expanse in front of them. “Sure it’s desolate, but it’s quiet and I like that.” He shrugged, unable to explain, but there was something about the horizon that he couldn’t put into words. When he stood here, it sometimes felt as if he should be the other side of the fence and walking towards the mountains, escape and freedom beckoning.

Which was dumb because there was freedom at the Garrison. He wasn’t a prisoner. So he guessed he came to this spot in the camp as a test, waiting for the day he’d no longer resist, and take off to leave this all behind.

“Shouldn’t you be socialising with your crew?” Keith’s tentative words interrupted the yearning and he swivelled back to face him. “You’ve been assigned, right?”

He nodded. “Science mission, but I already know the Holts, so we don’t need to bond.”

“But you think I do?”

“You want to fly, don’t you?”

“More than anything.”

And he looked so lost, but his arms were clasped tight across his chest - a barrier against any contact.

“By the time I get back, you’ll be flying for real, but you can’t save the world by yourself, Keith,” Shiro said, hoping his words were enough support. “Show your face, just for a short time.”

“You coming, too?”

“Thought I’d sit a while. I’ll be here if you find it’s all too much.”

Keith’s face didn’t light up, but there was an ease now, and a determination. He held out his hand, the gesture oddly formal. “Thank you, Shirogane.”

A warm hand. 

“Call me Shiro.”

***

In the dark of his room, his damaged mind bathes in the memory. He watches the cadet, waiting for him to backtrack, but Keith keeps moving, determined to give everything his best shot.

And Shiro hopes the warmth he still feels is not an illusion.

 


End file.
